


Together, That's Where

by Merfilly



Category: Independence Day (1996)
Genre: Cussing, One-Sided Attraction, Other, Pre-Relationship, either way, i hope you enjoy, or it might be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:25:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6916516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>David is doing something because Tom asked. And then, Tom asks him to go a different route.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together, That's Where

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glitteratiglue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteratiglue/gifts).



> I keep feeling like I should apologize for David's mouth.

David looked at the still smoldering wreckage, then back at the line of troops coming to quarantine it.

He had the authority to go anywhere he wanted. Tom had said so. Tom, the man that he'd sworn he could punch in the nose a million times before the aliens had come.

Tom, the fucking President of the fucking United States.

What in hell was his life even?

He tried not to wince at the idea of his dad's reaction to his swearing, even in the privacy of his own mind. His dad was going strong, and was reaching out to the survivors still. Connie was settling into her new role, handling the public as adeptly as ever from a much expanded job for Tom. The good Captain and Jasmine and the kid were knee deep in relief efforts, while David was expected to… 

…what? Make sense of it all, deconstruct it and pray he figured out how to beat them off better, if they came back?

_David, it might not be your field, discipline, whatever, but I trust you. Do it for me?_

Fuck Tom fucking Whitmore, fucking President of the United States, with his fucking good looks and compelling personality.

Unfortunately, that was very much what David found himself thinking about at night, and he knew it was just an after-adrenaline reaction, just like it had been with Connie. It was also ten times more inappropriate with Tom, because David knew the man was grieving for the nation and the world publicly.

Privately, he was grieving his wife, and David would, no matter what, respect that.

`~`~`~`~`

Time had run away from Tom as the aftermath washed out. Funny how fast bureaucracy had grown back from the devastation, or more like a Shakespearean tragedy, he supposed. His popularity as a hero was keeping him in the public eye, and people were talking about his future, but honestly? He wanted to be a private citizen, since he was not going to be allowed to return to the military.

That, actually, was where he wanted to be. General Grey even knew it, and had commented on the fact that he'd never be able to be more than a desk jockey in anything related to the military.

Tom, faced with being told what he wanted was out of reach, quietly enlisted support to craft a new arm of NASA partnered with the world space agencies. They couldn't keep him from getting on board the new Earth Defense League, not when it was going to fall under world doctrine and regulation. 

As that agency got its momentum, quietly slipping into bills and budgets, Tom knew he had to go and get one other person on board, or it really wasn't going to matter one damn bit to him.

`~`~`~`~`

David tipped his beer back, eyes closed, as he sat on the tailgate of the beat-up pickup truck he'd gotten from … Miguel. Miguel had found it for him, as Miguel had thrown himself into the effort to figure out the aliens. David was fond of the kid, preferring his no-bullshit attitude to the jerkwad tendencies of the Piled Higher and Deepers that were officially assigned to the lab. 

The sound of a jeep driving up was nothing out of the unusual, but hearing more than one set of crunching steps on the gravel was, so David opened his eyes to see…

… the President of the United States of America and two pretty buff guys looking for all the world like they were wearing targets on their backs for the lack of substantial back-up.

"You're on the clock, so I'm not offering a beer," David said. "You two fellas, you come back later, I'll give you each a beer, though. You deserve it, keeping up with this jerk," he said, his voice light and teasing.

Tom gave a quick smile and a hands-down gesture to the two men, then reached past David to take a beer anyway.

"Not here as a politician, David, but as a man that wants his country safe. Actually, his world," Tom told the man, leaning against the truck as he popped the cap and swigged a good bit of the beer down.

"Aiming bigger than ever, huh? Alright, I'll bite. Why are you here, instead of … where'd they stick the capital?"

"Technically, Colorado Springs. In practice, Cheyenne Mountain," Tom told him. It had been a little closer to the East Coast but still accessible to the crash site, and not quite in the fallout drift from their own nuke over Houston. "As to why, David, I'm here because you are. Because I want you for something I'm working on."

"I thought you wanted me here," David said, leaning up and looking Tom in the face, far closer than might be prudent, given how twitchy the two goons got.

"I did, I do, and I still want you where I'm going, when my term is up," Tom told him steadily. "I'm working with several world leaders to get a world defense agency in place, the Earth Defense League. Nominally tied to NATO, but we're working on making it as inclusive as possible. And they don't have a problem with me doing field work."

David stared for way too long, before slowly smiling and shaking his head.

"Adrenaline junkie."

Tom snorted. "No, I just feel like that's the best use of who I am, what I can do, than being a diplomat and picking out where I'm parking some god-forsaken library nobody ever goes to for reading!"

That set David to laughing outright, before he tipped his beer back and drained the bottle. "Take back to whatever posh palace you're staying in tonight, and sell me on this, Tom. Then you might just have me."

That was possibly the worst possible way he could have phrased that, for his own brain and other bits of himself. Luckily, Tom didn't notice or react or whatever, just nodding and finishing off his own beer.

"You won't regret this."

`~`~`~`~`

"I won't regret this, huh?"

"It's just a training program."

"To get in shape to be an astronaut."

"We are planning a new station to work from for watching the approaches to the planet better."

"Tom, shut-up."

Tom did, and they both kept working out, side by side, in the new Earth Defense League headquarters in the Sahara. They had a new life, side by side, to save the Earth.


End file.
